His Fear
by Orokid
Summary: Cloud pretends to sleep as Tifa shares things she'd usually keep to herself. Can he learn to tell her his own secrets?


_SincereHeartache__: __**Okay… This story is actually about a year old, having started it way back when I had millions of ideas and not enough hard drive space- and floppies were more or less out of date. So, in the end, I had put it off to the side (having written it all in handwriting) and waited to have a computer that didn't have the need for a floppy disk. This lead me to finally writing out all of this during a time when I was having a headache causing writer's block that comes and goes as it pleases- something I've gotten a little tired of over the years.**_

_**To add onto this, I suppose that I got the idea from listening a bit too much to one of my favorite Rascal Flatts songs- "My Worst Fear". During the time that I had started it, I began to think of a good way to transform the song into a story- although I wasn't sure if I was going to use the lyrics or not to make it into a 'true' songfic. In the end, I didn't because I had ended up going on my own little tirade of writing. Hopefully, that made the story good- especially since I started to write more of it long after I had actually written the first part.**_

_**To make a good point, this is making me start to write again- something that I've had a problem with for a very long time. . I can only hope that I can keep up with it all.**_

_**Disclaimer**__**:**__ I do not own anything that has to do with the Final Fantasy series, the characters OR the song that I had started to base the plot line after. I don't have any money, and I'm not making any from this either. This is non-profit and purely fan based._

_Moving on… Enjoy the fic!!_

**His Fear**

Cloud laid quietly in his bed for the first time in days, his eyes carefully shut, using little to no effort to keep them that way. His mind wandered lazily from subject to subject, searching for a way he could tire his head out as his body had already found it's own weariness to tie it down. Already, days before this had gone by him as his brain pondered several ways he might be able to cut down a monster of different height and weight, repeating to himself of battles long past, of the possibilities that Sephiroth may return to haunt him once more, and he'd lose his chance for a good night's rest as he'd open his eyes to greet a new day filled with monsters and adventures and several deliveries to different towns and continents- and him facing it with barely an hour's sleep to keep him 'chipper' (or as much as he could ever be).

Sometimes, he questioned himself if he might really be waiting for something to happen, waiting for an occurrence to give his body and mind a chance at once more being at the peak of power. Other times, he wondered if his insanity might finally be taking root in his sub consciousness, teasing him as he slowly was driven out of his mind. Whichever it truly was, the twenty-some year old hero of the entire world was ready and willing to reclaim his dreams or nightmares.

Soft, careful steps right outside his door caused the man's brows to unfurrow, knowing better than to give away his awake state to the one he could hear. He had often listened to those footsteps that usually moved back and forth through the hallway during the night, and he could easily separate these from the loud and carefree steps taken by two children that lived only a short walk down the hall. These remained gentle, taking each movement into precaution- the footfalls of a true master of martial arts, despite the fact that he could hear every sound that echoed within the walls of the bar due to each of his enhanced senses. He had to fight himself before his lips had curled ever so lightly to create what his friends may call a smile, reminding himself that he was hiding his status from the younger woman that had paused just inside the doorframe.

With the creek of the wooden outer coating, Cloud imagined the woman with her hand gently pressed to where the door would be if it were ever closed, the lights from the other rooms shining from behind, granting her a glow that made her more like an angel that had somehow fallen from grace. He could see in his mind the bags beneath those mahogany eyes, staring at him as he slept as she did whenever he was home, and imagined those dish washed fingers and padded fingertips from their years of keeping in shape and making sure that Sephiroth's rebirth never truly came to a head. Her form would be slightly hunched out of weariness, having had to deal with the men and women who came into the bar to escape the outside world and hide within the recesses of their better memories. Her hair would be in slight awry, having had to turn and serve quickly to her customers as they came and drank into a drunken stupor.

He listened as she heaved a sigh into the silence that surrounded them, forgetting that his mind had only been imagining her every look and gaze that she offered to him without fully knowing that she had. A creek in the floor, followed close by the sound of wood being pressed against by either an arm or shoulder, alerted him that she had shifted her weight onto one side of her body, and he knew by that movement alone that something pressed roughly against her heart and soul. There were nights when she'd share secrets about her day while he laid in his bed, awake yet without her knowledge of him being so, and he hoped that she might do the same that night so that he might know before...

Slowly, he listened to her as she crept into their bedroom, taking even more care to keep him from waking than she usually did. Not often did she do this, but he kept silent so not to scare her as she passed by her bed and moved ever closer to him. Curiosity gripped at his very being, and he wondered what she was going to do once she had reached him- until he felt a soft hand press against his cheek, her gentle fingers trailing down from his brow to his chin. Ever so quietly, he didn't even hear her bend down when she gently pressed her soft warm lips against his cold forehead.

"It's not easy, Cloud," he heard her whisper softly into the midnight air mere inches from his face, her hand falling from his jaw to rest upon his chest right above where his heart would be. He had grown used to keeping his heart beat regular, not wanting to frighten her, nor to let her know of things that he kept to himself more often than not. If he didn't know her habits, if he hadn't feigned sleep as he had many times before, he would have been sure that she knew of his alert status, but the way that she spoke told him more than she had said- that she still believed his lie of slumber. "Ever since we've started our business, it… it hasn't been easy at all." There was a long pause as she sought for words to say, trying hard not to allow her voice to break as it had several nights before, pulling away from him so that he wouldn't wake to the sound of it. She silently took her hand back from where she had laid it upon his body, and from the sound of her clothes rustling ever so slightly, he could only image her wrapping them around herself in attempt to comfort the ache that she didn't want the world to see. "Even at the beginning, you stayed away from home, going on your own adventures to who-knows-where so you didn't have to come back to the broken family that we made. You stopped answering your phone even." The young woman heaved a sigh, keeping her voice low and quiet as he listened to the sound of her pressing her palm against her probably tear-filled chocolate colored eyes. "It's been so hard, Cloud." She couldn't hold the emotion from her voice any longer, allowing herself to break ever so slightly before the man whom she believed was asleep, whimpering her words against the echoing silence of the room. "No matter how much I try, you… you don't love us enough to come home more." The blond haired warrior kept quiet, listening as the tranquil, quiet night that surrounded them only grow more still. He didn't dare wake from his faux sleep, not wanting her to take notice of the things he himself couldn't tell her. "You… didn't love me enough… like I always loved you."

The young man felt something within him break, although he couldn't name what it might have been, unsure if it had ever existed in the first place. In his memory, he had always been broken, unsure of the things that he wanted or needed, careful not to get hurt after having been so several times before. He had been short and insecure when he had left his hometown, where people despised his face and name because he was the child of an unwed mother, no father to gain a name from, and the scapegoat for the other boys to blame so to get out of trouble. He had reached for a dream to become the greatest, only to have gotten shot down by test results claiming him to be an imperfect candidate for the procedure he wanted the most. His family had been lost to him by the fire in Nibelhiem, friends lost to the life stream like sands in the hourglass, and he had been nearly killed by the one that he had revered the most. As a broken man, he had searched for ways to run from being shattered into pieces, not wanting to feel the pain he had already endured any more than he had.

That was why…

"I'll always love you, Cloud. More than you'll ever know." The words hung in the air, biting into him more than he thought that it should. The words sounded more sincere than he had ever heard her say, even when he had laid in his bed without her knowing of his consciousness. "I just… I wish you could understand why I…" Another wave of emotion seemed to rush her, causing the young woman to be unable to finish what she was about to say. He waited ever patiently for her to finish, holding his body firmly still so that she might continue to tell him the things that she had yet to say. Once more, he felt her fingertips outline his features, her touch softer than it had been the time before.

Without another word, the young woman quietly made her way out from their bedroom, stopping only once at the doorway to look back at his undisturbed form. Seconds passed by before she finally willed herself to move from the spot that she stood, and he listened to her do her best to hold back her tears until no sound remained. Their home was silent, almost unknowing of the words that had been said- but something about it seemed to fill him with a fear that he hadn't quite understood.

A part of him wished that he could have told her that he wasn't going to be there in the morning, when she woke up to find him gone. For the years that they had been working together, he had been unsure whether to take her words for the truth that he knew they were, afraid that she might hurt him like he had been in the past. In his mind, he had started to believe that they were nothing more than a ploy to make him return, to have him back to the bar so that they might be able to do more missions, make more money, to take care of the children that she had taken in because she had been able to have her own. At that moment, he couldn't quite con himself into believing such a lie.

For once since that day he had awoken to see her staring down on him, having seated himself at a lamp post near the Midgar Station, he felt himself fall into a dreamless sleep.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

The moment that he his eyes opened, he couldn't help but remember the things that she had whispered to him in the middle of the night. He seated himself at the edge of his bed, running his fingers through his hair as he did his best to think of something to say to the ones whom had been there waiting for him, always patient for him to return from the job he had taken to after the defeat of their greatest foe. A part of him wanted to pick up the few things that he needed and walk out the door and never return again, to leave the girl who had wanted so desperately to live a life with him without a word to his reasoning.

But there was another part that reminisced about the things she had shared in the darkness, wanting for the first time in a long while to talk about the things that he had been keeping to himself. For all those nights that he had laid there and listened to her worries, for all those days that she had merely given him that unsure smile as he walked out the door with little intention to return in a certain amount of days, he had started to wish for all of the unsaid words to come from his lips, to let her in farther than he had ever allowed another person to go since he had been a boy with a dream. The man looked to the window that was opposite the wall closest to him, gazing at the morning sun that had risen only an hour or two prior, looking toward the freedom that he had wanted the day before with sunken eyes.

He couldn't leave. Not without telling her. Not without promising to return.

Standing from the bedside he had sat upon, the tall muscular man quietly moved to the doorframe that had remained open from the night before. "Tifa?" Her name echoed within the bar, a quiet echo his answer to his unspoken question. He felt his heart thud curiously, anxiously, for the first time in a long while as he continued to wait for an answer. His feet moved through the hallways, looking into the children's bedroom with soft eyes, finding that both Marlene and Denzel had oddly left their room more or less clean, their beds made much like they had the night before, when he had passed by them. Blue orbs scanned the room, glancing from place to place as he began to notice that Marlene's favorite doll, the one that she carried with her almost everywhere when bedtime came along, and both children's favorite toys had disappeared from where they had been lying for the past week. Breaking away from the doorframe of that room, the man quickly made his way down the stairs, stopping at the bottom as he took careful observation of the fact that the woman whom had cared for him so peacefully, who dared to love such a broken man, seemed to be no where in sight.

The only thing he could notice in the empty tavern was a piece of paper that had been knifed into the wooden door of the room that the woman had been using as an office, bare from any sort of sense one might have that a person may have been there at one point in time. The man gripped the sharp implement, pulling it from the timber with a small bit of strength, letting the paper fall into his other hand. He recognized the tear stains through the blotched handwriting, although it was dry to his touch, and he could tell that it couldn't have been more than a few hours old. Running his thumb along the words, he began to read, his heart slowly breaking in two.

'_By the time you've found this, we'll have been gone for a while. I'm sorry, but I couldn't take it anymore, Cloud. I hope you can find someplace to really call home, even if it's not with us. Goodbye._

_-- Tifa'_

The once warrior felt his hand grip around the knife that he held within his hand, raising it in anger to stab at the door that he had taken it from, forcing it to the hilt within the wood. He had finally found a reason not to run away, not to leave the one place that had accepted him even when he couldn't accept himself, and they had… left. They had all left- and he was alone, broken, by his own hand, left with his true fear to keep him company.

'_PS- I love you. I always did. I always will.'_

For the first time since he could remember, the wounded SOLDIER felt tears fall from his mako eyes.

**XXXXXXXXXXXXX**

_**SincereHeartache:**__ I kind of feel a little bad about how I ended it, but… yeah… I had planned for it to end like it did- although I didn't know that it would end exactly like it had. I had a minor idea about it, to tell the truth, and I was winging it- especially considering the age of the story, and how long it's taken me to complete it. I suppose the only thing that I can really say as a regret is that I didn't end it was well as I began it. I tried at least. _:3

_If you enjoyed the fic, or find something that you think I should know, please review and speak your heart out. I'll do my best to fix whatever I need to in future stories. X3_

_Thanks for reading!_


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